[Choi Seung-hee 100 Scenes] 14. Eheya Noara

Eheya Noara was Choi Seung-hee’s breakthrough work. It premiered alongside Elegy on May 20, 1933, at the Modern Women’s Dance Competition held at the Japan Youth Hall(日本靑年館), organized by the women’s magazine Reijokai(令女界).

 

Originally, Eiko Ishii was scheduled to perform as the representative of the Ishii Dance Troupe, but she fell ill with acute pleurisy just before the competition, so Choi Seung-hee participated in her place.

 

<신여성>, 1934년 5월호, in <그대서지(2013, 12면)>

 

Eheya Noara was created between March 3 and May 20, 1933. In her autobiography My Autobiography (1936, p.126), Choi Seung-hee described the choreography process for Eheya Noara as follows:

 

“The first piece I presented during this period was the duet With Hope in My Heart, set to Sarasate’s Andalusian Romance, and the next piece I created was Eheya Noara, in which I danced wearing a traditional Korean hat to the accompaniment of traditional Korean music.”

 

According to Modern Bibliography (근대서지, 2013, p. 13), the May 1934 issue of the Korean women’s magazine Shin Yeoseong (신여성) stated that Eheya Noara was created in 1931. Biography Choi Seung-hee (1981 [1959]: p.118) by Takashima Yuzaburo(高嶋雄三郞) also states that Eheya Noara premiered in Seoul in 1931.

 

<세기의 미인무용가(1994)> 178-179면, 최승희팜플렛2집에 실린 <에헤야 노아라>

 

In 1931, Choi Seung-hee presented new works at six performances, totaling 32 pieces. Eheya Noara is not included in this list. This implies that it was presented under a different title. What title could it have been?

 

Since Eheya Noara was classified as Chosun Dance rather than modern dance and was a solo dance performed by a male role, there was only one work that met these criteria. It was Our Caricature, which premiered as a solo dance by Choi during the Dansungsa (団成社) performances from May 1–3, 1931.

 

Choi’s teacher, Ishii Baku, choreographed a piece that comically caricatured an elderly Korean man he had observed near Gyeongseong Station during a performance in Gyeongseong in March 1926, and titled it <Caricature (カリカチュア, 1926)>. Ishii soon changed the title of Caricature to Forgetfulness(失念) and continued to perform it until at least 1940.

 

이시이 바쿠의 <실념>

 

Choi found her teacher’s Caricature, which comically depicted an elderly Korean man, offensive. In “A Letter to My Sister,” included in Choi Seung-hee’s Autobiography (1937, pp.56–57), Choi Seung-il, her older brother, described the circumstances surrounding Choi’s creation of the piece Our Caricature as follows:

 

“You and I were greatly displeased after seeing Ishii’s Caricature, in which a dancer wore Korean attire. We immediately discussed it with Mr. Lee Gi-se and choreographed a dance to the Jin-yang(진양) and Jungmori(중모리) rhythm of the gayageum sanjo(가야금산조), titled Our Caricature. Wasn’t that the first time you danced to Korean rhythm?”

 

In other words, the original work for Eheya Noara(1933) was Our Caricature(1931), which Choi created by drawing inspiration from her father Choi Jun-hyeon’s gutgeori(굿거리) dance—specifically to counter her teacher Ishii’s Caricature (1926). The accompanying music used the Jungmori and Jinyangjo rhythm of gayageum sanjo.

 

In May 1933, ahead of the Modern Women’s Dance Competition, Choi consulted with her teacher and decided to enter the piece Our Caricature, renaming it Eheya Noara and changing the accompanying music to a faster gutgeori rhythm.

 

<부인공론>, 1935년 6월호, 203면

 

Performed again at Choi’s first Tokyo performance held at the Japan Youth Hall on September 20, 1934, Eheya Noara received high praise from Japanese cultural and artistic figures. In particular, Yasunari Kawabata(川端康成), while discussing this work, praised Choi Seung-hee, stating, “among Western-style dancers, Choi Seung-hee is the best in Japan.”

 

Eheya Noara was also performed during the Nagoya performance in May 1935, the Kansai tour in October of that year, the Takarazuka Grand Theater performance in November, and the Kyushu and Shikoku tours. In 1936, it was performed without fail during the Manchuria tour in April, the Hokkaido and Tohoku tours in May, and the July tour of Taiwan.

 

Even after the world tour was decided, Eheya Noara remained the piece Choi performed most frequently, and it was a staple of the “Farewell Performances” held in Korea, Japan, and Manchuria. (jc, 12/28/2025; 4/2/2026) Ⓒ Cho Jeong-hee